Crowded Marriage

by Catherine Alliott

  I sat down, stunned, on the arm of a chair. My legs simply wouldn’t support me any longer.

  “But I thought…” I turned to Dad, who, whilst pretending studiously to realign a raft of silver photo frames on a table, was also trying—not terribly hard—to suppress a smile. “I thought you were seeing Helena Parker! Thought it was all going swimmingly!”

  “Oh, it was. It worked a treat.”

  “Worked a…what d’you mean?”

  “I wasn’t really seeing Helena Parker, Imo, but when I met her the other week at Tessa Stanley’s dinner party, it occurred to me she was just the sort of woman to drive your mother crazy. As, of course, the others haven’t.”

  “The others haven’t? You mean…”

  “Imogen, your mother and I split up ten years ago, when, due to a mid-life male wobble, I had an affair with another woman. A stupid, silly mistake, but these things happen, or so I thought. Unfortunately, your mother saw it differently and chucked me out—quite rightly—and then put the seal on things by moving lock, stock and barrel to the South of France. So that was the end of everything. The end of our marriage. Finito.”

  “You never questioned it,” said Mum softly, perching on the piano stool and crossing her legs, arranging her dressing gown around them.

  “Because you never gave me a chance! You made it very clear from the outset that I would not be forgiven, and that you were starting a new life without me.”

  I glanced at her. It was true, she had. She’d never left the door ajar; was far too proud. But then, no one had thought Dad wanted to come back in.

  “You were firmly ensconced with Marjorie, or so I thought,” pointed out Mum.

  “Marjorie was a pain in the tubes,” he said irritably, “as you well know. She doesn’t draw breath and she nagged me the whole time.”

  “Well, I could have told you that. She nearly pecked poor Derek to death.”

  “And anyway, she went back to him—after a fairly hefty push from me—and I came out to see you in France.”

  “Yes, but you brought that magician’s assistant with you! Mandy something-or-other.”

  “Only to make you jealous. I thought if I went younger and prettier it would do the trick!”

  I put my head in my hands and rocked from side to side, groaning. “I don’t believe this,” I whispered to the carpet.

  “Younger and prettier?” Mum gazed at him incredulously. “But she lasted two years!”

  “Well, what was I supposed to do? I was on my own, spurned, deserted!”

  “And then came Audrey, and then Marissa—”

  “And all the time,” I jerked my head out of my hands, turned to her, “you found it more and more amusing, as each new model appeared.”

  “Well, it was! Seeing your father making an absolute fool of himself is, without doubt, hilarious.”

  “And as long as he was doing that, you could cope with it. But when he presented you with Helena Parker…”

  “Inspired,” murmured my father, drawing himself up and retying his dressing-gown cord. “An inspired choice. Elegant, sophisticated—”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be too pleased with yourself,” I snapped. “It took you ten years to think of it. I can’t believe you’ve wasted so much time!”

  My parents looked down at their feet like a couple of chastened, naughty children. “And all because you were too proud and stupid to talk to each other, to communicate. I’ve always wondered why pride was one of the seven deadly sins; well, now we know!”

  Further contemplation of the carpet ensued.

  “So—then what happened? You broke up with Dawn,” I turned accusingly to my father, “and while Mum was eagerly awaiting Trixie, or Jordan, rubbing her hands with anticipatory glee, you had a rush of blood to the head and realised—and what kept you—that you were on the wrong tack, and pretended you were seeing Helena. I seem to remember you even got the dress code right, the choice of restaurant.”

  “And then your mother rang her up!” roared Dad, eyes huge, voice full of awe. “Gave her an earful about honouring old friendships and ties, and about divided loyalties, and how she should keep her hands to herself, until Helena finally managed to get a word in edgeways and told her to get her tanks off her lawn, because aside from sitting opposite me at a dinner party the other night, she hadn’t seen me for four years!”

  “Yes, that was slightly embarrassing,” admitted Mum, inspecting her nails ruefully. “Had to do quite a bit of backpedalling and apologising, but Helena was very sympathetic. She’s always been a good friend, and in fact, she gave me a lecture. A slightly lengthier version of what you’ve just said.”

  “What, about never leaving the door open?”

  “Exactly. And that if your father could go to the lengths of thinking up such a ridiculous ruse he must care very deeply about me, and wasn’t it time we stopped behaving like children and sat down and talked. So we did.”

  “Bit more than talked,” grinned my father, unable to suppress himself.

  “Thank you, Dad.” I shut my eyes. “Please. It’s enough of a shock to find my parents canoodling in their dressing gowns without getting the gory details.”

  “But you’re pleased?” said Mum, anxiously. “I mean, you’re not too shocked?”

  “Oh, I’m delighted. Oh God, haven’t I said?” I jumped up and went across to hug her. Hugged Dad, too, who, when I let go, leaped up in the air scissoring his legs together sideways, always his party trick.

  “I’m thrilled to bits for you both, I’m just so cross you wasted so much time!” I looked at them despairingly. “Does Hannah know?”

  “No!” They both gasped in unison, eyes full of fear.

  “Well, you must tell her.”

  “Oh no, we can’t tell her the whole story. She’ll be furious!” Mum quaked.

  “Have to make something up,” agreed Dad. “Say—you know—we just coincidentally, and rather bizarrely, started fancying each other again.”

  “Oh, she’ll really fall for that,” I said drily.

  “Yes, she might think it’s a bit odd,” agreed Mum. “After ten years of hating each other.”

  “But you never did hate each other.” I turned to her, exasperated. “That was what was so unusual. Most divorced couples do, most are at each other’s throats, but you’ve always been good friends, always got on. I feel so stupid that I didn’t think of it, didn’t sit each of you down and say—now look, Mum, you still like him, and—come on, Dad, you certainly can’t want to spend the rest of your life with bimbos.” Dad blanched but I swept on. “But I was too tied up with my own life, I expect, to notice.”

  “You had a lot to be tied up with,” said Mum, putting a hand on my arm.

  I looked up at her sharply. “Dad told you?” I said alarmed.

  “About what Rufus saw? Yes. And I think he should have told you sooner. I would have done, there and then, but I take the point that he thought Alex might not be serious about her.”

  “Well, I never was about Marjorie, or Mandy, or Dawn, so I thought perhaps he wasn’t. I’ve only ever really loved your mother,” Dad said sadly. As he did, he looked across the room at her and his eyes filled. That didn’t surprise me—Dad was an emotional being—but I was overcome when Mum gazed back and hers filled up too. Mum wasn’t tough, but she certainly wasn’t a soft touch either. She pretty much kept a lid on things.

  I stood up. Time to go.

  “Well, I’m delighted. And so will Hannah be. And now you can both go and tell her.”

  “Oh, no!” they chorused again, looking horrified.

  “Oh, yes,” I insisted. “You can do it. But make sure Eddie’s there,” I added as an afterthought as they followed me down the hallway. I could already hear Hannah’s horrified tones: “How could you be so stupid? Ten years. Ten years!”

  Her outrage would be short-lived, though, because I could also hear her joy at having them together again, as loving grandparents for little Tobias, and for Rufus too, I thought
as my heart gave a leap. Oh, this would go a long way to healing his hurt. A long, long way. I turned at the door in realisation.

  “Rufus will be thrilled.”

  They both beamed until I thought their faces would crack.

  “That’s what we thought,” purred Mum.

  “And we also thought,” went on Dad excitedly, “that we’d keep your Mum’s place in the South of France, use it as a holiday home. Have you all down in the summer—Hannah, Eddie, Rufus and Tobias—put a pool in.”

  “Lovely,” I agreed faintly. And it would be. I wasn’t uttering faintly for any other reason than I wondered…well, I suppose I wondered who I’d be with. By the pool, in the sun, the cicadas croaking in the grasses, Eddie mixing a tray of cocktails under an umbrella…I straightened up. Well, I’d be with my son. And my sister and brother-in-law, and my nephew, and both my parents. I looked at them, standing together in the doorway: Mum, looking younger and softer, her hair mussed, cheeks glowing; Dad, well, Dad perhaps a little older, a little wiser. But then, he’d needed to grow up, hadn’t he?

  I embraced them both again.

  “I’m so pleased,” I whispered in their ears. “So, so pleased.”

  And then I turned and went down the path, leaving them alone.

  ***

  When I picked Rufus up, I had difficulty keeping a foolish grin at bay. Rufus spotted it immediately.

  “Why are you smiling so much?” he demanded as I put his cricket bat in the boot.

  “I’ve just had some rather good news.” I shut the boot with a satisfying click.

  “Oh?” Rufus looked up at me, hopeful, and for a moment, for all his bravado about us being better off on our own, I wondered if he thought his father was coming back.

  “It’s about Granny and Grandpa,” I said quickly as we got in the car. I wondered if it would be an anti-climax now. “They’re going to get back together again.”

  Rufus stared at me, astonished. Then his face lit up. “Wow!”

  “I know,” I said, relieved. “Wow. After all these years, they’ve suddenly remembered why they loved each other in the first place, and why they got married.”

  “Are they going to get married again?”

  “Oh,” I laughed as I let out the handbrake, “I don’t know about that. They might, I suppose.” God, Dad would love that. I could just see him in a frilly shirt and tuxedo in Las Vegas, retaking his vows, although Mum might prefer to be barefoot on a beach, flowers in her hair.

  “Grandpa must be so pleased,” Rufus mused as we drove off. “He was a bit lonely, wasn’t he?”

  “Was he?” I shot him a look, surprised. “But Grandpa was the one with all the girlfriends. Granny was the one on her own.”

  “Yes, but Granny’s good at being on her own. Grandpa didn’t have a soul mate.”

  I smiled. “What do you know about soul mates?”

  “What he told me, when I told him about Dad and Kate. He said, ‘Silly arse. I’d give anything not to have made that mistake. Not to have alienated my soul mate.’ I looked up ‘alienated,’ but I couldn’t find ‘soul mate.’ What is it, Mum?”

  “It’s…someone you feel very deeply about. Someone you feel instinctively is right for you, for ever. Part of you, almost. Like the missing piece in a jigsaw.”

  “Did you feel that about Dad?”

  I considered this. “I thought I did, but looking back, I wonder if it wasn’t a bit one-sided. If I wasn’t a bit…well, obsessed with him, when I met him, to see clearly.”

  “What’s obsessed?”

  I paused. “Keen.”

  “Oh. And have you ever met anyone else who you thought could be a soul mate?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Rufus, there’s an ice-cream shop over there, would you like one?”

  “Oh, cool. Yes, please, Mum.”

  We pulled up on the edge of the village. This conversation was getting just a little too adult for my liking.

  “That’s where your pictures are, isn’t it?” Rufus pointed to Molly’s bar, a few hundred yards down the road.

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  I realised I’d been avoiding it for the last few days, for reasons best known to myself. Avoiding her. But that was silly, I decided. I couldn’t do that for ever. She was selling my paintings, for heaven’s sake.

  “Rufus, you go and choose your lolly, and I’ll pop in and see if anything’s been sold.”

  “OK. I’ll come and find you.”

  I gave him some money and he was off at the double, loving that little bit of independence that made him feel so grown up, to be buying his sweets, at nine, on his own.

  The bar was closed and in darkness, but I could see movement in the shadows. When I rang the bell, Molly wove her way briskly through the tables and came to swing back the door.

  “Hello stranger! We haven’t seen you round these parts for a while.”

  “I know. I’ve…been busy.”

  I’d forgotten how beautiful she was. Her heart-shaped face was wreathed in smiles and her green eyes danced. Her sheet of silky dark hair shone like a mahogany halo in the bright sunlight. No wonder he loved her.

  “Come in, come in. You’ll have a quick coffee?”

  “I won’t, thanks,” I said stepping inside. “Rufus will be back in a mo. He’s just gone to get an ice cream. I just wondered how the pictures were doing?”

  “Well, look!” She reached for the light switch and illuminated the dark cavern. Flung her arms around the bare red walls. “I was going to ring and tell you—I need more!”

  I gasped. “You’ve sold them all?”

  “Well, not all of them—there’s still a couple down there.” She pointed to the room through the archway. “But I’ve sold eight out of eleven. Not bad, eh?”

  “Not bad? My God—it’s brilliant!” All sorts of dizzy emotions jostled within me—excitement, pride—but mostly, an entirely practical one: paying my rent, properly, without going cap in hand to Piers; paying my bills, being independent, perhaps entirely independent of Alex, which, I suddenly realised, was what I craved.

  “How much?” I couldn’t help it.

  “Well, I haven’t completely totted it up yet, but I’ve got it written down somewhere…” She made towards her pad of paper behind the bar. “Just got to take off my commission and—”

  “No, no, it’s OK, Molly.” I blushed and stayed her arm. “I can work it out at home. It’s just…well, I’m not used to having money. Of my own.”

  She grinned. “And there was I thinking you were a bored housewife doing it to Find Yourself. Hadn’t realised you were a proper struggling artist needing the dosh.”

  “Well, I am now.” I saw her curious look but didn’t want to elaborate.

  “But who bought them all?” I went on quickly. “D’you have a list?”

  “I do, and they’re mostly locals. Even Piers Latimer bought one!”

  “Piers!”

  “Yes. We had a kind of official opening party for the bar. It was last week, very impromptu, and I tried to get hold of you, but someone said you were in London. Anyway, he came and bought one, and my parents came and absolutely loved them and they bought one, and all three of my brothers came, and one of my brothers even bought three!”

  “Good heavens.” I was stupefied. That people would actually want to part with hard cash for my paintings…hang them on their walls, above their fireplaces, show their friends—“Yes, a local artist. Rather talented, we think.” I gulped, overcome. And it was mostly the large canvases that had gone, the recent, sweeping landscapes, not tiny loo pictures. Only three, the ones I’d painted in London, remained.

  “Well, I don’t know what to say. I’m staggered. Thank you so much, Molly.”

  “Don’t thank me. You painted them,” she grinned, as Rufus came running back in with his lolly. “I just provided the wall space. Hello, you.”

  “Hi.” Rufus smiled politely, then, not so politely: “Mummy, can we go now? I want to s
ee if Biscuit’s had her puppies.”

  “The Latimers’ dog?” asked Molly.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s just about to. Pat was here a minute ago, having a cup of tea, and he got a call from Piers. She’s having a few complications, I gather.”

  “Oh! Mum, can we go?” Rufus looked up at me, anxious.

  “We can, my darling, but I’m not sure Piers will want you up there.” We made for the door. “Thanks, Molly, we’ll speak soon.”

  “Oh, he will,” urged my son, “he said I could. And he said I could have a puppy too. Theo’s having one. Can I, Mum?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve already said no, Rufus. We’ve got too many animals.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” he grumbled as he hurried to the car. “Anyway, quick, I want to see her have them. And if we don’t hurry, Pat will have delivered them.”

  “I’ll drop you off,” I told him firmly.

  ***

  We drove up to the Latimers’ and I deposited Rufus round at the back door. I half expected to see Pat’s beaten up Land Rover already in situ, but the back yard was empty. Nevertheless, in case he’d parked around the front, I kept the engine running as Rufus got out, only lingering long enough to see him run through the back door and into the depths of the house, a regular who knew the way, knew the ropes. I sighed and drove home, knowing Rufus would ring when he wanted to be collected.

  Back at the cottage, I went straight up to the bedroom where I was forced to keep my paintings in the wardrobe. Maybe I’d earn enough to build a studio, I thought wildly, dragging them all out of the cupboard, just a little wooden one, like a summerhouse. And maybe I’d paint on real canvas now, and maybe…maybe I could approach the chap who ran the gallery in town. Have a proper exhibition. If the locals liked them, he might have heard about my success at Molly’s. I crouched down and sifted eagerly through them, wondering which ones I should pick to fill the gaps at the bar. I wouldn’t desert Molly. Oh, no, as long as she was selling them, I’d keep putting them on her walls. Gosh, I had plenty, so—what about this seascape above the bar? I propped it up on the bed, standing back to view it critically with narrowed eyes. Or—this Parisian street scene that I’d done in London? It had a certain café society feel to it—perfect for the ambience. But they weren’t framed. None of them. And framing was so expensive. About sixty pounds a throw. But I had money now, I determined, and I must plough it back in. If I was going to be a success, I had to reinvest.